“This wonderful book, which brought back many fond and sometimes painful memories of a few who sadly never realized their dreams, is a long overdue tribute to fallen comrades from a truly amazing era in American history.” Walter M. Schirra Jr., Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronaut.
“In Fallen Astronauts we learn of men who may not have shared in the ultimate triumph but who were nevertheless an indelible part of these unparalleled exertions. By recognizing the prodigious debt we owe them, and their loved ones, in this fine history, Burgess and Doolan have made an important contribution to the history of space flight.” Scott Carpenter, Mercury astronaut.
“Every generation learns the hard lesson yet again: space flight is a risky business; not only the missions themselves, but the arduous training. Fallen Astronauts is a long-overdue tribute to a group of men who paid the ultimate price for their tragically unfulfilled dreams of space flight.” Michael Cassutt, author of Who s Who In Space and coauthor of We Have Capture.
Near the end of the Apollo 15 mission, David Scott and fellow moonwalker James Irwin conducted a secret ceremony unsanctioned by NASA: they placed on the lunar soil a small tin figurine called “The Fallen Astronaut,” along with a plaque bearing a list of names. This book enriches the saga of mankind s greatest scientific undertaking, Project Apollo, and conveys the human cost of the space race by telling the stories of those sixteen astronauts and cosmonauts who died reaching for the moon.
Many people are aware of the Apollo launch pad disaster in which three men lost their lives, but few know of the other five fallen astronauts whose stories this book tells as well: among them, Ted Freeman and C.C. Williams, who died in the crashes of their -38 jets; the “Gemini Twins,” Charlie Bassett and Elliot See, killed when their jet slammed into the building where their Gemini capsule was undergoing final construction; and Ed Givens, whose fatal car crash has until now been obscured by rumors. The extraordinary lives and accomplishments of these and other fallen astronauts including eight Russian cosmonauts who lost their lives during training unfold here in intimate and compelling detail, supported by extensive interviews and archival material. Their stories return us to a stirring time in the history of our nation and remind us of the cost of fulfilling our dreams.
About the Author
Colin Burgess is the author of books on space flight, including Teacher in Space: Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger Legacy (Nebraska 2000). Kate Doolan is a co-author of Australia Post’s 1992 International Space Yearbook, Mission to Planet Earth. Bert Vis is a Dutch space analyst who conducts research on the Soviet/CIS Space program. Captain Eugene A. Cernan lives and works in Texas, and is the author of the The Last Man on the Moon.
